CURRANT SCALE ON RASPBERRY. 89 



found on the Bed and on the White Currant, but that (up to that 

 date) he had not personally seen them or heard of them as infesting 

 Black Currant. 



In that year, however (1893), I heard of them from Mr. Wm. F, 

 Gibbon, of Seaford Grange, Pershore, as being very destructive on 

 Black as well as on Red Currants ; and on careful examination of 

 Black Currant bushes in my own garden, as well as in an adjacent 

 garden, at St. Albans, I found it present on the boughs, although not 

 to any great amount. On the Eed and White Currant bushes it was 

 very noticeably present. 



Since that time little, if anything, has been reported about it until 

 in the month of November in the past season I received from Mr. 

 Walter J. Lavender, of Petersfield, a number of pieces of Raspberry 

 cane showing very decided presence of infestation of fine specimens of 

 female Scales, which he considered to be of Lecanium ribis. For the 

 sake of obtaining certain identification, I submitted the specimens (on 

 the canes) to Mr. Robert Newstead, F.E.S., Curator of the Grosvenor 

 Museum, Chester, who was good enough to examine them, and in- 

 formed me that the specimens were Lecanium. ribis, Fitch, 5 ( = L. 

 coryli, Linn.), and added : — " The specimens are unusually large, and 

 in this respect approach L. rosanim. They are the first examples I 

 have seen on Raspberry, and for that reason are interesting. The 

 insect is undoubtedly a general feeder, for I have also received it on 

 one of the Conifers." — (R. N.) 



The female of this species of Scale is shown in natural size on an 

 infested Gooseberry twig at p. 38 ; likewise in side and upper view, 

 much magnified ; and (likewise magnified) in larval state, whilst still 

 in active condition, and possessed of six legs and a pair of horns. 



On requesting any further information from Mr. Lavender which 

 he might be disposed to give me regarding the attack in its new 

 connection with Raspberry, he was good enough to write me on 

 December 1st as follows : — 



" It was certainly as early as February, 1897, that I first observed 

 L. ribis upon Raspberry canes in this garden. The female Scales 

 were then in all stages of development, varying in colour from almost 

 light sienna tint to dark rich lustrous red-brown, so placed upon 

 the stems as to the casual observer to appear excrescences upon 

 the bark. 



"Upon applying pressure with the thumb and forefinger, the 

 lighter-coloured Scales exuded a perceptible moisture, and, removing 

 the darker and harder Scales, they were found filled with the yellowish 

 powder-like eggs described by you ('Handbook,' p. 111). ... I 

 failed to find the larva. I have since found the developed Scales at 

 all seasons of the year upon the last year's growth of canes, — the 



